Under this programme, the Centre has prepared an exhibition on the essential features of Indian geography, culture, history and economy. Comprising of about 90 large-format panels, the exhibition is divided in several sections.

The first and the largest section offers an overview of the extraordinary natural resources that India commands in the form of land, soil, water, sunshine, vegetation, animals and minerals. The second and the third sections offer equally compelling overviews of the civilisational resources available to India in the form of deeply engrained social and cultural values of harmonious living and caring for others, on the one hand, and of highly sophisticated technological skills that helped make India a country of extraordinary material wealth through most of her history, on the other.

Later sections offer details of a functioning Indian polity of abundance and caring from the eighteenth century Chengalpattu district of Tamil Nadu; give a brief picture of the recent history of India; document the growth of science, technology and industry and flourishing of enterprise at different levels in Independent India; and analyse the constraints that are inhibiting India from taking her rightful place as a great, powerful and prosperous nation of the world.

The material of the exhibition has also been published in the form of a book entitled, Timeless India Resurgent India: A Celebration of the Land and People of India.

The exhibition was first displayed during February 2001 at Coimbatore. The Honourable Minister of Human Resource Development and Science and Technology, Dr. Murli Manohar Joshi, visited the exhibition at Coimbatore and released the book. Later, in August 2002, the exhibition was displayed at the Lalit Kala Academy, New Delhi. The display at Delhi was inaugurated by Sri L. K. Advani, the Honourable Deputy Prime Minister of India, who, after going through the exhibition, expressed a keen desire that it should be displayed at all district headquarters and efforts should be made to make the children of India aware of the contents of this exhibition. He also wanted that the exhibition should be translated into different Indian languages and rendered into a multi-media presentation.

Subsequently, the exhibition has been produced in Hindi. A Hindi version of the book incorporating the material of the exhibition is ready for publication. We are in the process of producing a multi-media presentation of the material.

Proposed Further Work: Jagrita Bharat Utsav

In accordance with the desire expressed by Sri L. K. Advani, the Union Ministry of Sports and Youth Affairs has approved a program for taking the English and Hindi versions of the exhibition to different cities. The programme also includes making multi-media presentations in every district, and conducting quiz programmes on the subject amongst school students. The programme, to be conducted in collaboration with the Nehru Yuva Kendra Sangathan, has been named Jagrita Bharat Utsav.

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